BY DESIGN : Suit Your Fancy : Esther Williams is devoted to all things aquatic, but her line of swimwear is her passion. The best part? She dresses a lady for the beach.
The pool should be bigger.
In the mind’s eye, one expects to be greeted by a smiling Esther Williams, flowers in her slicked-back hair, gliding effortlessly--maybe even balancing a tray of lemonades--with a battalion of similar but lesser water babies trailing. All in a double Olympic-size pool.
But her pool is a small one, shaped like an eagle’s head. Williams’ Beverly Hills home is built on a rock that prevents a larger model. And although she does offer beverages and chocolates, she stands on solid ground, poolside.
Still, Williams’ devotion to all things aquatic didn’t end when her grand MGM movie musicals did. In fact, she uses all she learned on those studio lots and underwater adventures to create her eponymous swimwear collection, available at Nordstrom.
Just open up one of her huge leather-bound scrapbooks for page after page of Williams, in newspaper and magazine spreads, striking various poses, almost always in a swimsuit, completely at ease and tastefully glamorous.
That look is what Williams strives for in her designs. And it hasn’t been easy.
“This is our seventh year now that we’ve been in the business,” Williams says of her partnership with Edward Bell. “And we went through three manufacturers. I designed some of the first suits, but there were big arguments about what I wanted. I don’t think men are very good at knowing what to put on a woman’s body in a swimsuit.”
Williams, 72, understands the many stages of womanhood, from the athletic career woman who works out religiously, to the new mother who has seen shifts in her body, to the large-size or older woman who doesn’t want to give up on style.
And she makes suits meant for swimming.
“I’ve cut my suits into more of an oval in the back so once it’s on you, everything stays put,” Williams says. She also emphasizes what she terms containment--fabric is cut high under the arm. (“Doctors--men--say breast milk is really the best for your babies. Well, it’s lousy for bosoms. And that hanging breast on the under of the arm. . . .”).
Cover-ups that meet the thigh, boy-cut bottoms and a halter suit reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe’s famous updraft outfit in “The Seven Year Itch” show that modesty is marketable.
“Have you seen the covers of some of the Sports Illustrateds,” Williams asks, “where those gorgeous girls are dripping wet out of the water and absolutely everything shows through? I’m sure if something were in the suit to keep the nipples from showing they would cut it out,” she says, laughing.
“I dress a lady for the beach. Not undress her.”
Williams says she developed her design know-how while making her movies. “When we got into the real hard work of long days swimming, starting at 9 in the morning in the water and getting out around 6 or 7 at night, what happened is suits fell apart if they weren’t properly made or fitted or had the right fabrics. And I learned. I went to school with good teachers.”
She witnessed the hand-making of her suits in an era when materials where scarce. “I happened right after World War II, in which everybody came home in 1945 and ‘48, and it was like ’49 that my pictures began. They had given up on anything made of rubber; it had all gone to the war effort, so they were making swimsuits out of parachute cloth, which had no give at all.”
Even before her movie career ended in the early ‘60s, Williams worked with Cole of California and advised others on getting a good fit with swimsuits.
“Jane Russell was working for Howard Hughes and she was about to do a picture. I think it was called ‘Underwater,’ ” says Williams, preparing to adopt Russell’s scratchy alto voice. “She said, ‘I’m doin’ a picture and I have to be underwater and the Phantom’--that’s what she called Howard Hughes--’the Phantom, told me he wants me to have a swimsuit that really looks good underwater.’ And I said, ‘What would you like to know about, a swimsuit staying over the buns, is that your problem?’ And she said, ‘That’s it. The Phantom wants it not to stay over my buns and I want it to stay down!’
“I said, it’s the way it’s cut, and she came over and I made some drawings for her.”
Nowadays, with her line, Williams is grateful for Lycra (“I saw that fabric and I said, ‘Where were you guys when I needed you?’ ”) and sees her suits as not only a fashion item, but a route to fitness. She still gets wet every day--a system in her pool creates a current for greater resistance--and advocates swimming as the perfect exercise.
“I went on a talk show and there was this lady that stood up and she was wide,” Williams says. “She stood up and said, ‘I had a baby six months ago and I can’t lose the weight. What am I going to do? What kind of suit should I wear?’
“And I said, ‘Sweetheart, you know what you have to do? You have to get one of my suits that makes you feel really good when you’re in the water, cause you’re gonna do a lot of water aerobics and that’s gonna get that off of you, because you’re weightless in the water.’
“I said, ‘I got a real nice cover-up for you. You put that on and when you go to the pool you turn around and see if anybody’s looking and you take the cover-up off and slip into the water and do your exercises. And pretty soon you won’t have to slip in when nobody’s looking.’ ”
Williams wants everyone who wears one of her suits to feel at ease, as she would about a favorite dress. Of course, this is someone who, even before the movies, had made water her domain. She says getting people in the water is “my life’s work.” And she looks on that work with pride, especially when approached by grateful fans.
“My favorite is when they clasp you and get tears in their eyes in airports to say, ‘I learned to swim because of you.’ And wonderful stories like, ‘My family and I had a boat accident and everybody would have drowned if I hadn’t saved them,’ ” Williams says.
“And I think Meryl Streep is never gonna hear ‘I learned to act because of you and it saved everybody’s life in a boat accident.’ ”
